Ken's team exploit the Holocaust – again

An astonishing story reached me after an afternoon campaigning with Boris in his double-decker bus around North London last weekend.  A friend went to the Criterion Theatre to see a play about Anne Frank's friend, Eva Schloss. Although in no way was this a party political event, Livingstone supporters were there handing out leaflets outside. 

Nothing wrong with that you might say, but then it gets worse. Deputy Mayor Nicky Gavron was invited on the stage to answer questions about her Jewish background.  She apparently turned the occasion into a party political broadcast, urging the audience to vote for Ken  - the response was booing and hissing from the audience. Given Ken Livingstone's previous embrace of extreme Islamists and his comparison of a Jewish journalist with a concentration camp guard, it does seem astonishing that the Mayor's team think they can exploit the holocaust for political ends and hijack an important theatre production for party political purposes.

By way of contrast, Boris Johnson was out in North London all afternoon yesterday on his battle bus, in a number of areas with a high Jewish population. Instead of seeking to make capital of the Mayor Ken's friendliness towards Islamic radicals, his anti-Semitic remarks, and his offensive views about Israel, Boris chose to focus primarily on key issues that matter to local people, like crime, transport and the environment.